slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Chris O'Leary, blogger with 10 years of Active Duty in U.S. Marine Corps (1989-2000)

So I’m going to try not to be harsh or degrading. I’m not a liberal, I’m a libertarian-leaning centrist who loves his country and proved it by spending 10 years serving it in the United States Marine Corps. I will try to keep this simple and factual. I want to ask you to read it with an open mind until the end. If you truly love your country as I do, you will. Unfortunately, I don’t think you do. I hope I’m wrong.

There is a simple answer to your question. Nothing. There is not a single thing I could say that would change your mind. That is the problem.

Every day, you look at your social media feed and anyone who posts something that makes you uncomfortable, you unfollow them. So your feed contains only people and sources that do nothing but praise your hero. Any information that counters that doesn’t appear on your feed,

Every day, you look online and you see news stories, and they make you uncomfortable, so you don’t actually read them, you read the headlines and they seem sensationalistic to you. So you listen to a man who Politifact’s ratings show that 69% of the things that come out of his mouth are at a minimum “Mostly Untrue” when he says “Those guys are lying” And you take comfort in that. Anything you see that goes against your feeling that “Donald Trump is the Greatest” is simply “F**e News” and you won’t read it. You’ve probably already stopped reading this. I hope not.

Read this next paragraph. Understand I’m not saying there is proof that this happened, I’m asking you what would happen to your feelings if I showed you absolute proof?

Consider this. Back to your question. IF. IF, consider the hypothetical, please. IF I played a recording for you of Donald Trump in a meeting with Russian officials during which they made it clear that the e******n was going on, and during that meeting, the Russians made it clear they had dirt on both the Democrats and the Republicans, had significant dirt on Trump himself, and you heard Trump agree that in exchange for them releasing the dirt on Clinton and the Democrats in a coordinated fashion, and for not releasing any of the dirt on himself or any of the Republicans, he would, when elected, ease sanctions on Russia, give classified information to the Russians, and not interfere when the Russians worked more to gain more authority and influence over the former Soviet Baltic states who are now members of NATO.

If I played you that tape, would it change your mind?

I believe you are already thinking things like “Well being better friends with Russia is not a bad thing” instead of “It's Russia who needs to begin to behave in a better way in order to be better friends with us and anything less is unacceptable.” You’re already looking for how it can be spun as the deep state trying to make your hero look bad, instead of looking at your hero and asking yourself why there is just so much to criticize.

One of the memes I see that most fascinates me is the one that shows Trump looking all calm and focused and says something to the effect of “Never has every word a President has said been so examined for fault by the media.”

Remember what Luke Skywalker told Rey in Star Wars? “Every word of what you just said was wrong.”

Every single word of what every president has ever said has always been analyzed by everyone because every word every president says is the official position of 1/3 of the federal government of the United States of America.

Every president in your lifetime until now has learned, (or known going in) that because of that they need to govern their speech so that they say things that are in line with how they want to lead. Trump for some reason refuses to learn that lesson, despite the fact that it keeps getting him in trouble.

I hope you’ve read this until here. I’m positive nothing I’ve said has changed your mind, I hope you see I haven't tried to. What I hope is that perhaps, I’ve encouraged you to widen your information bubble and to start paying attention to more sources that don’t make you comfortable.

News isn’t supposed to make you comfortable. It isn’t always good news. It isn’t always happy. But it’s a good idea to ignore the guy who only tells you to ignore the bad stuff about him.

Liberty Tree

Spoken like a liberal masquerading as a centrist who reads his own selective set of blogs and sources.

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

Why would you want to change the mind of a Trump v**er anyway. Trump v**ers want a Great America! Try changing the minds of those who don't want a Great America. There is your challenge dummy.
MAGA BABBY MAGA TRUMP

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

First, let me say that I respect anyone who served as a Marine for 10 years (I'm Army for over 8). We appreciate Chris. And he makes a reasonable argument, but in order to follow him all the way through it, I have to make many assumptions and ignore what I consider facts in order to buy in completely.

First, I don't do social media per se. I have a dormant account on facebook, no twitter, or anything else. I bounce around the WWW looking for information myself and I try to sample from a lot of sources - although I admit that lately it's very difficult not to notice what Google, YouTube, and others are doing to silence conservative voices (so they're kind of doing to the left, what Chris suggests we're doing - i.e. limiting what voices we hear).

Then Chris talks about how the media's fact-checking resources show that President Trump is unt***hful. Chris, when you cite the MSM (and PolitiFact is a part of that) you lose me. Darn near everyone admits that the MSM publishes many more negative stories on Trump than positive ones. And it's no longer open to interpretation as to why. They are as big a part of the Resistance as anyone.

Then Chris says "IF" you heard a tape where Trump makes a deal with the Russians, blah, blah, blah. OK, but we already have proof that President Obama (hot mic) cut deals with the Russians and Hillary did the same (Uranium One). And let's not even go into the Democrats dealings with China - a country that is a greater danger. But ignore all that because there MAY BE a tape somewhere. Dude - just produce it and we'll see how it affects things. If the Dems had that tape, I think since we haven't heard about it yet, we'll be hearing about it in the next few weeks.

Then Chris plays the "political correctness" card. And he's right again. President Trump is anything but. Well, Chris apparently didn't learn anything about the 2016 e******n. A whole lot of folks v**ed for Trump if for no other reason than to toss a grenade into the DC cluster flick that's been doing very little that we've wanted for the past few administrations.

Bottom line. President Trump is a very flawed man. But in my opinion, he's been one helluva President.

Lonewolf

we don't need to change their minds there aren't enough of them left to matter

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

[quote=Weasel] Why would you want to change the mind of a Trump v**er anyway. Trump v**ers want a Great America! Try changing the minds of those who don't want a Great America. There is your challenge dummy. MAGA BABBY MAGA TRUMP

Both responses seemingly written by two who fit the description of those to whom Mr. Chris O'Leary was addressing.

To Mr. O'Leary, my response is...Semper Fi, Marine

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

Boy, oh Boy, you sure beat around a lot of bushes to get to what we already know. I am glad today's military no longer moves that slow. We would be in a world of hurt.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Nice response, Fit2BTied. In speaking to Mr. O'Leary's comments...it is both fair and reasonable.

Lonewolf

nice post

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

Well what did you expect from the army conflicted by the rules of engagement in the mid 70s. (sarcasm)

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

True enough.

Comment Loc: California

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

There are people who are thrilled to see automobile accidents, these are the folks that hold up traffic while they're trying to see if there are mangled bodies. This type of person thrives on chaos, mayhem, injury and death, endlessly searching the internet for stuff that gets their adrenalin pumping. Many, but not all, Trump supporters fall into this category.

Lonewolf

Fit2BTied Loc: Texas

Yep, that's us, your basic basket full of deplorables. (sarcasm). For a second there, I coulda' sworn you were describing A****a, but...